Monthly Archives: March 2013

Debbie Fox, the Chairman of Caterham & District Horticultural Society and Growing Redhill, is giving two one evening gardening courses for Spring at EastSurreyCollege. The first one is on 20 March and details are below. Feel free to promote it to friends and colleagues. Each evening talk costs £7.00 and can be booked in advance by calling 01737 788445 or online at www.esc.ac.uk. The talks are from 18.30-20.00.

20 March – The Joys of Gardening in East Surrey – Past & Present(course code LSKE2X44XA).
This course is for the gardener, garden tourist and local heritage enthusiast. I hope it will stimulate further interest or study. We have a rich garden history inEast Surrey. We’ll visit some lesser known, yet inspiring, gardens on our armchair tour. We will study the charismatic, and often published, people behind the gardens. Fast-forward to today and we’ll look at the same locations. What legacy did these avid gardeners leave us? How do we share our joy of gardening now? The National Gardens Scheme is thriving inEast Surrey. Horticultural societies such as Caterham and District have been running since the 1880s. Growing Redhill is part of a new movement called Landshare. We will explore the challenge of attracting new interest from our younger, future gardeners, and new models of publishing, such as social media.

Wednesday 15 May – Changing Floral Fashions – the Thirties to the Noughties

Meet the Woodland Trust

The Transition movement is committed to a sustainable future and ecological resilience – but what does that mean?

Surrey is England’s most woody county, but plans for development of Redhill don’t make much of the natural environment, despite being located at the foot of the Downs and surrounded by woods and parks that attract people to the area.

We invite you to join us for a talk by Liz Randall from the Woodland Trust – come and find out about the Woodland Trust, who they are and what they do. Perhaps you will be inspired to plant a native tree yourself.

Last month…

At last month’s get together in the Garland we had a great discussion on the subject of local food and how we can work together to source food in a more sustainable way. Since then we have met with the Food Float team in Dorking who hold a stall in Dorking selling locally sourced produce. We had an interesting discussion and although in its early stages the team are starting to come up with some ideas on how to move this project forward. If you have any ideas or are a local producer do get in touch (sbacon51@yahoo.co.uk).

And finally…

We recently heard about a volunteering opportunity with the Bat Conservation Trust which may be of interest.

When bats are most active (between May and September) the Bat Conservation Trust runs an out of hours helpline, where volunteers answer emergency calls from the public in the evenings and over the weekends. Volunteers receive training in answering calls before the season begins, as well as full support from BCT staff throughout the season.

This page has more information (as well as a rather cute picture of a grey long-eared bat) if you are interested in helping out.